Crystal Shards (falling)
by writerdragonfly
Summary: Captain Claire "Lightning" Farron, USAF, joins the Atlantis Expedition in their initial journey, becoming ensnared in the battle with the Wraith, while being haunted by memories of a life before. Major John Sheppard finds that Captain Lightning and her scientist are hiding a dark secret that could mean the end of the Expedition-or the destruction... of the Wraith. Post LR, S1 AU.
1. I Claire

**I. Claire**

She remembers a mannequin with a dusty pink wig, swinging by a rope secured around its neck in front of a clock face.

She doesn't remember being afraid, only angry.

Incensed.

-x-

Claire is born in California as the eldest daughter of an heiress and an Air Force General.

When she's fourteen, her parents die in an accident, and Claire and her sister are separated.

Claire doesn't see Sera for six years.

-x-

Sera is two years younger than Claire and hopelessly beautiful, and Claire wishes she'd been able to see her grow.

Instead, Claire is in her second year in the Air Force, and Sera is turning eighteen in a week and their paternal grandfather is dead, which is the only reason Claire is seeing her now.

"The world is wrong," Sera whispers into Claire's chest after a nightmare that night, her whole body twitching with silent sobs.

Claire doesn't respond.

She just... kind of feels it too.

-x-

Sera leaves Claire three days later on a scholarship to Stanford, and Claire doesn't even realize until Sera is gone again that she doesn't even know what for.

-x-

Claire loves to fly, but even more than that, something in her finally settles when her call sign becomes Lightning.

-x-

No one calls her Claire anymore, except for Sera.

-x-

Jack O'Neill says, "Welcome to the Stargate Program."

-x-

Dr. Estheim is three years older than Lightning, and it makes her a little itchy. It's almost as if she can picture the scientist as a fifteen year old.

She doesn't say this though. Instead she says, "Pleasure to meet you, Doctor."

-x-

Sometimes Lightning dreams of dragons and screaming and a sword that folds down into a pistol.

Those nights she creeps out of the barracks and slips into Dr. Estheim's lab to watch him work.

-x-

"Captain Farron," O'Neill says three days before the Atlantis Expedition is set to leave.

"General," she replies.

"Colonel Sumner would like you to join the expedition."

"Oh," she says, and then, "If Dr. Estheim is going...?"

"I'll check into it."

-x-

Dr. Estheim locks the door behind her when she visits that night and says nothing for nearly half an hour.

"Light," he finally says, and she feels light-headed at the intonation.

"Hope," she replies, and she remembers handing him a pocket knife that he ends up twirling around his knuckles at the metal ring of the fold.

"I didn't think you remembered... before," he says, and he's a little glassy eyed when she looks up.

"I remember some," she says, "but not everything."

And it's true.

She trusts this scientist enough to risk her career, and she's not entirely sure why.

-x-

She dreams of long days with nothing but Hope's voice in her ear.

-x-

Atlantis is humming when she steps through the gate, but Major Sheppard a beat behind her makes Atlantis sing.

-x-

Sumner is dead, Major Sheppard is in charge of the military, and Hope hasn't slept in just as long as Dr. McKay.

(The city tells her this, whispers it to her while she showers the Wraith off her skin.)

He's in the middle of an argument with McKay when Lightning steps inside the new labs.

"Hope, you're allowed to rest," she says, which makes McKay give them both a strange look.

"Light, I don't-"

"It's not like before," she says, and Hope's shoulders just fall at that.

"But it is," he says, and Lightning wants to scream.

(This is new. She doesn't remember wanting this.)

"They are not Cie'th," she says, and she doesn't know why but she knows it is the truth, "there are no more Cie'th."

"What are Cie'th? Were you two part of a gate team on Earth?"

"Lightning," Hope says, and McKay blinks.

"What does lightning have to do with-"

"It's her name, Dr. McKay," Hope says, and McKay stares at the patch with her name, C. Farron.

"... why would anyone nickname you Lightning?"


	2. II John

II. John

Being in Atlantis feels like coming home. The city feels like a hum in the back of his head, like a song remembered from his childhood, like a subtle warm that permeates his skin with every breath.

He doesn't know if she's technically sentient, alive. But she's more than just a system of Ancient programs and software.

He knows that.

He knew it from the first step into the city.

And he knows that Captain Farron can feel it.

She's surprisingly stone faced despite everything that has happened since they stepped through the gate, but he _knows_ she can feel it too. It's something in the way she twitches _just barely_ whenever something new initializes, the way her eyes flicker to the ceiling just briefly when lights come on.

He doesn't know why she would hide her gene, but he knows that she is.

-x-

John thinks about asking her to join his team, once he's settled in with the knowledge that he's now the military commander of an expedition the military had hardly wanted him on.

He thinks about it, but something about her makes him hesitate.

Something about her reminds him of things he'd rather forget.

She hadn't shown a hint of emotion when their eyes met after she fired the shot that took out Sumner, not satisfaction or regret. It didn't matter to him that he'd been about to make the shot himself, because one of them had to.

He just wishes he could read her better, know if she was dangerous.

If she could be trusted, or if she'd be one of those people who he'd have to watch carefully for signs of breaking.

-x-

He comes across Farron by accident during his rounds, checking on the personnel in the labs. She's sitting on a lab stool, a few feet away from Dr. McKay and another scientist he doesn't actually know the name of.

"That's a long story, Doctor," Farron says, but there's a faint lift to her lips that he's never seen before.

"Hello, Major Sheppard," the other scientist says, and Farron goes a little rigid, before trying to seem relaxed.

"Just patrolling before I get some rest," he says, and Farron actually softens at that.

"I was trying to get Ho-Dr. Estheim to do that very thing," Farron says.

"McKay should probably get some sleep too," John says, and Farron's lips twitch.

It's the most emotion he's seen of her to date.

"I don't-you're not the boss of me, Major."

"You haven't slept since we arrived, Doctor McKay," Farron says, "and neither has Hope."

"How do you _know_ that?" McKay demands, looking surprised and perhaps a little frightened.

"The city knows that," Farron says, "and she needs you to rest."

John catches Farron's eyes, the way she dares him to say otherwise with just a look.

"Go to bed, McKay. I'll wake you if we start sinking."

"Very comforting, Sheppard."

-x-

John should be asleep too, but instead he's poured himself over Sumner's files.

There's nothing to suggest that Dr. Estheim and Captain Farron had any way of knowing each other before she joined the SGC eighteen months before he had. Farron was never posted anywhere near him, Dr. Estheim went to school far away from her.

He doesn't understand their wordless and apparently instant connection, if the reports are accurate.

 _Farron's only caveat to joining the expedition wasn't contact with her sister, as initially expected. Instead, she agreed to the request only if Dr. Hope Estheim agreed to be included in the expedition as well. Reports from Estheim's staff imply that Farron spends a great deal of her downtime, especially during the 0100 and 0400 hours, in the labs. Often, Farron is entirely silent during these times. Despite this, there is no evidence of Farron and Estheim being in a romantic relationship. Given that no complaints about Farron's presence have been made by Estheim or any of his staff, there is no official comment on their relationship attached to Farron's file. It is suggested that their relationship be monitored during the course of the expedition, but otherwise Farron is to be allowed contact with Estheim as both deem necessary._

He doesn't get it, but somehow he doesn't think it's a bad thing.

Just... different.

John sighs and closes the file.

-x-

The next day, Rodney McKay says, "I want you to shoot me," and John thinks, later, maybe he gets it after all.


	3. III Snow

III. Snow

He dreams of wide open ocean and fireworks in the sky, a warm soft body curled into him.

He dreams of a silver pendant around a pale neck, the soft curve of her lips.

He dreams of an intense happiness in his chest that he's never felt before, and hasn't since.

-x-

He had been born on Ruus, a small planet far in the sky of Sateda.

His parents never married, his mother retreating to her homeworld when Snow was small. His father had been a merchant, often gone for long stretches of time. He died when Snow was twelve, and Snow probably didn't grieve him as he should have. (He doesn't remember his mother. Her name is lost to him, even now.)

His grandfather had raised him for the most part, and Snow's fondest memories were of sitting in his arena, watching him train the young recruits.

-x-

When Snow is sixteen, the Wraith destroy Sateda and stop on Ruus to feed.

They leave no survivors on the planet.

-x-

Snow doesn't know how long he is on the ship before he is released. He has no measure for the days and nights, just the slow and heavy passage of time.

While he is under, he does not recall the time of his childhood on Ruus at all.

Just of the life before, on Cocoon and Pulse and after, of the woman he pledged to marry and the sacrifices he underwent to bring her home. (And after, to bring her sister home.) [And after, in her memory.]

-x-

In his life before, he had been branded as l'Cie. (A servant, a slave. Expected to blindly follow an unclear path.) He had been branded and given an impossible task with no instructions and no measure of his own time limit to complete it.

It had been terrible and wonderful and terrible.

In this one too, he has been marked. (Tagged, tracked, the phrasing isn't important.)

He can feel it, an otherwise hardly noticeable lump under his skin between his shoulder blades. It feels heavy, and in particularly bad days, it tastes like metal in his mouth.

He knows the terms for what the Wraith have made him. _Runner, hunted, prey._

But, maybe it's all those years of memories suddenly bright and warm in his head after he'd been put into stasis on the ship, but... he's not as afraid as he probably should be.

Cie'th... they were terrifying because they used to be human. This was a fact, a known thing. Fail your task, become a ravenous beast, a grotesque no longer recognizable facsimile of who you were before. The Wraith, they were almost-but-not-quite human shaped but there weren't ever stories that one could (would) [might ever] become one.

(Though, sometimes Snow wonders if that's true. Those are the bad nights, wondering if they gave up a chance at paradise for the same song they already lived.)

-x-

Snow is a Runner. It means not stopping to make friends, have sex, build contacts.

It means taking all of his grandfather's lessons and making them work.

It means that one day he nearly guts a Satedan survivor in the stomach after running through the jungle, and he doesn't even stop to make sure he's okay.

It means Snow is alone again, running through the Ring like he'd once run through time gates searching for Serah's sister.

(Once, he had been alone by decision, by choice. Once, he'd tried all he could to make her happy again, even if it meant they were apart for awhile. It had been deliberate but never intended as permanent.)

(Now, he would rather never find her if it meant she never had the Wraith in front of her.)

(He misses her more than he misses Ruus.)

-x-

He hears the murmuring. The rumors of the Ancestor's return. He doesn't ask for clarification.

He doesn't want to know.

-x-

He remembers this: Bhunivelze wanted to erase the past and rewrite the world.

Bhunivelze came before and then came the gods who came before people, and the gods slowly

died and the people remained.

And Snow thinks, maybe... Maybe the Ancestors were all like Bhunivelze.

And maybe there was never an uprising to stop them, but instead of letting (watching; waiting) all

the people die (not die, never die, just end) they just abandoned them.

Maybe Bhunivelze wasn't the worst thing out there.

But maybe he's wrong.

Snow has never been smart, not like Lightning and Serah and Hope.

No, Snow knows he's probably so far wrong.

But.

He might have been happier not remembering at all.

-x-


End file.
